Good King Arnold and The Lazarus Expedition

This is the backstory for the upcoming Save or Die campaign: The Lazarus Expedition. It is the history of Good King Arnold, of the Stormtide Kingdom on the Western Seaboard of Solumn, the great continent in the east.

Good King Arnold ruled what is now known as the Stormtide Kingdom from the day of his birth until the day of his death at age 45. He was a cleric of Velmontarious, a reformer of society, and a beloved leader. His untimely death at the hand of an assassin threatens to undo much of his life’s work and bring about the end of this golden age.

The story of his life, up to this point, is as follows.

Birth
Good King Arnold was the first born child to Queen Naadli, ruler of Storm Island and its territories within the bay. During labor there were complications. Clerics were summoned to save the queen’s life, even if it meant the death of the baby. The clerics worked their magic, but rather than the queen living, the child lived. It was decided that this was a sign from the gods that this child was something special, and so he was.

Cleric of Velmontarious
From an early age, it was clear Arnold was wise beyond his years. The young child often spoke on matters of morality with an elegant certainty that unnerved his caretakers. By the age of 12 he affirmed Velmontarious as his guiding stars. By the age of 14, he channeled his first spell. When he came of age to wear the crown, he was the leading cleric in the kingdom.

The Ogres of Storm Island
Storm Island had long been home to disunited bands of Ogres, and had long been home to conflicts with them. King Arnold’s first act as king was to orchestrate peace between the humans and the ogres. He ventured into their lands, spoke with their tribal leaders, and created a pact. 

Yet on the day of signing, the ogres betrayed the pact. In an attempt to bind all ogre to the same pact, they were finally united into one war band, and used the opportunity of their unity and joint presence at the signing to launch a surprise attack on the people of Storm Island. 

Thus began King Arnold’s first crusade. Leading the army himself, and drawing upon the divine might of his deity, King Arnold vanquished the oath breakers from the land and brought peace and stability to the island.

Crusades
The Age of Heroes, the time in which Good King Arnold lived, was fraught with much change. The great heroes and villains for which the age is named rose to power, building mighty empires in their shadows. Some of these were so villainous that when word of their deeds reached the shores of Tides End, Good King Arnold had little choice but to act. Some say Velmontarious himself gave King Arnold these quests, others say that a man as righteous and honorable as King Arnold would act before being compelled by his deity. These crusades were waged in the name of justice, and they reached lands well beyond the borders of the king’s rule. Necromancers and their abominations were laid to rest. Dragons were slain. Great warlords almost had their way, but were subjugated and their lands divided up amongst their greatest clerics. 

Much to the distress of the nobles who sacrificed much personal wealth and the lives of their offspring in these quests, King Arnold would not allow any spoils of war to be taken from distant lands, instead returning the wealth to those it had been stolen from. Internally unpopular at first, King Arnold insisted upon one after another. Soon his crown became a known sight throughout the western lands, and the crusades were met with tribute and glory. In their wake, pilgrims, travelers, and traders flocked to Storm Island, the later of which set up trading posts on the assorted outlaying islands bringing wealth and exotic goods to the lands.

So popular with both the people of the kingdom and those of the neighboring regions were the crusades, that internal resistance withered no barely a grumble. 

Justice Reform
The phase “Justice is slow but sure” is the cornerstone of King Arnold’s reforms. Taking time not to change too much too fast, King Arnold made many changes to the functioning of society up until the time of his death. The following list of reforms is incomplete and nonchronological.

* Abolition of slavery at birth - no person shall be born into slavery, all persons regardless of lineage are born free. First act of abolition.

* Abolition of new slaves - no new person can be enslaved, and no new slaves may be brought to within the borders. Second act of abolition, decades after the first.

* Abolition of existing slaves - the last major act of King Arnold before his death, technically King Arnold used the vast wealth of the now prosperous kingdom to buy all existing slaves, granting their freedoms and retaining them as clients. Most of these freed people were elderly and of diminishing value to their former masters, and of considerable burden to state.

* Public Trials - all serious crimes must be tried in public

* Live Witnesses - the word of an absent witness holds no weight. All witnesses must be present and speak under an oath to the gods.

* Divine right to life and limb - only the king or a high cleric of Velmontarious may deprive a citizen of life or limb, excepting for spies and cowards during times of war.

* Enforcement of patronly duties - the responsibilities of the upper classes to the lower classes are sacred. Dereliction of duty is the same as abdication of rank.

* Progressive taxes - Power is the same as responsibility. The more power you have, the more responsibility you have. Money is a form of power, so those with greater wealth must pay a greater share of taxes.

* Sacred Contracts - Established and funded sacred grounds at all trading posts, overseen by priests and clerics of Quantarious, Astair, or Velmontarious. Contracts made in these places are made in sight of the gods, and signed by their servants. These contracts are bound by law, and breaking them in bad faith brings down wrath both divine and ordained.

These reforms brought wealth and prosperity to Storm Island and its outlaying territories.

Divine Justice
After the Abolition of New Slaves act, Good King Arnold’s own father, the former King Consort, sought to replace his elderly and dying slaves with new ones from outside the kingdom. By changing their names to match those on his own records, and shuffling their localities time and again, he hoped to circumvent notice and continue to accumulate wealth. When word of these actions reached the court of King Arnold, he summoned his father to stand trial. Before the trial could begin, the key witnesses were all murdered, and records lost in fires. With the Live Witnesses act already passed, there could be no prosecution of the king consort.

The motto “Justice is slow but sure” once again proved its weight. King Arnold carefully interviewed each of his father’s men under Zones of Truth in the royal court, keeping safe those who could serve at witnesses, returning those who knew nothing. After years of systematic investigation, King Arnold’s own father was brought before the court, found guilty of both enslaving and orchestrating the murder of witnesses, and sentenced to death - an unheard of punishment for someone of his rank. The King Consort was beheaded in public shortly thereafter.

Civil Defense
The nations bordering the great bay were horrified by the changes happening in the city of Tides End, and worried about the execution of the King Consort. They feared that to allow such things to go unpunished may give ideas to those withing their own borders. Upon the execution of the King Consort, an alliance of Kingdoms and Warlords set upon the territories of what had become known as The Stormtide Kingdom. Good King Arnold, at the height of his popularity with the people, faced war from outside of his borders, and fermenting rebellion from within by those who saw their place threatened by this new sense of justice.

A long war ensued. The allies took island after island, in long brutal sieges. King Arnold used the time to find the traitors, spies, and insurgents within his own ranks. Turning one upon another, he slowly rid the kingdom of corruption before turning his attention to the enemy without. An alliance with those poor cursed elves beneath the waves (baring the hunting of hunting of whales and dolphins and the exclusion of certain areas of the sea and bay from fishing) saw the slow and steady destruction of enemy fleets from beneath. The islands besieged or conquered were freed, and the allies sued for peace.

King Arnold set the terms, reparations in the form of wealth and lands, but the allies could not agree on how to divide the burden amongst themselves, and so the war continued. With full control of the seas, and King Arnold in the vanguard, his armies swept the peninsula before terms could finally be reached. Vast sums of wealth was paid for the reconstruction of besieged territories, as well as to purchase all existing slaves within the Stormtide Kingdom. Furthermore, slavery was immediately and irrevocably abolished in the allied nations. Conquered lands, save some islands, were given back, and peace once again came to the lands.

Death
Within a year of the end of the War of the Bay, Good King Arnold was killed in his sleep by an assassin at the age of 45. His death has brought about the very real possibility of war reignited, and a collapse of the new systems made in his name.

His greatest warrior, Lady Lazarus Paladin of Voraci, who helped him slay The Great Green Dragon, the woman closest to the goddess of death herself, proclaimed his death premature. She claimed Voraci would hold his spirit here in the world until such a holy quest was fulfilled, and Good King Arnold would rise again. Leaving behind the majority of warriors and clerics to resist a potential new invasion, Lady Lazarus set out seeking a Scroll of Resurrection. The Lazarus Expedition visited many lands, overcame mighty enemies, and finally learned of the location of just such a scroll - Inside the Pyramid of Heatstroke, in the cursed island known as Arcadia, where the gods first set foot upon the world, and where peace has never been seen.

Six months after having first set sail, the island of Arcadia came into view, but the ship was ravaged in a storm and went down beneath the waves. Only a handful a survivors made it ashore. The campaign that follows is their story.